Day 6 - Snaefellsbaer Penninsula

Monday, June 26

Day 6

The plan for the day was to drive to the Snaefellsbaer Penninsula, hopefully see fjords and a glacier. The Garmin seems to not be calculating distances/times correctly, as it was supposedly only 140 km away, yet it estimated 3 hours.

The drive out was gorgeous, we were so happy to finally have blue skies! The first excitement was driving in an underground tunnel that was almost 4 miles long! We pulled over often to take pictures since we hadn't had incredibly great scenery up until this point.

It was a few hours before we had the chance to pull over and get out to walk around. This waterfall wasn't all that impressive, but there was a steep, short walk up to see the Bjarnarfoss waterfall.

Just down the road we saw a bunch of parked cars. We all had to use a bathroom and didn't see anything right off the road, but we decided to stop anyway. We were at the "troll cave," known as Rauofeldar Canyon. Another steep and short walk took us up what looked like a crater to a green hole in the side of the mountain. 

Once we got a little closer, it seemed that we could walk on the rocks and go in a little deeper. I could see why a troll would want to live there! Shielded from the weather and wind, the temperatures were pretty mild and it was really neat in there.

A man and woman came in after us and they seemed a bit more adventures and were trying to go further into the cave. Not wanting to die, we opted to go back to the car in hopes of finding a bathroom.

The Garmin kept routing us away from the coastline. We were attempting to get to the Snaefellsjokull National Park to look at a glacier. Where we ended up was a somewhat treacherous dirt road that literally drove us ONTO THE GLACIER. (Shhh, don't tell the rental car company).

The road at the top was closed (thankfully, it was a bit of a harrowing drive) so we just took a selfie with the view of the beach in one and the glacier in the other, before heading back down (to sanity).

Once at the bottom we arrived in a tiny town, Arnarstapi, with one cafe and a food truck. We opted to get our dessert of the day at the cafe - chocolate cake and coffee!

There was a short walk along the shoreline where we got more pictures (still with blue skies!)

We still had not been to the actual national park, so we kept heading north. We somehow missed the turn, but it did lead us down a cool road where we were able to walk down to another black sand beach at Djupalonssandur.

We finally found the turnoff for the visitor center, and a few more pictures.

By this time, the clouds were rolling in (again) and we were all getting cranky, so we started the drive back. After about 40 minutes of driving I had to pull over and have Mo drive because I could barely keep my eyes open. We decided we needed to have ONE dinner that was not Domino's. We drove into the city and went to "American Bar." We spent $40 on a junk beer, pretty gross nachos, and a kid's cheeseburger for A. The service was terrible and it took over a half hour just to get our bill. Not impressed.

It was almost 8 by the time we got back to the house. After checking us in for our next flights, I realized that we were only allowed ONE carryon/personal item. Uh oh. That meant that we had a whole hour to try to pack all of our junk into just one bag.

Steps - 14,114

To be continued...

Day 5 - Seljalandsfoss, Gljufrabui, Skogafoss, Vik

Sunday, June 25

Day 5

We were out the door by 7:15, as we had a long drive to Vik ahead of us. We were greeted with some blue skies for a nice change.

When we had gotten directions to Vik, we were told that there were some pretty cool waterfalls on the drive down. We stopped at ALL of them. First up was Seljalandsfoss. The cool part about this one was that there was a very short hike that walked BEHIND the waterfall. We all got pretty wet walking under this one, but it was worth it.

Kinda looks like we showered - nope, just walked behind a water fall

There was another short walk to get to the next "famous" waterfall - Gljufrabui. This one was a waterfall in a crevice of rock, off a small beach. I was smart enough to think, hey, I should walk in the river on these rocks where other people seem to be going. Looked pretty nifty from the inside too.

Yes, that is me under there, no, I'm not a ghost

We were cold and there was a pastry/coffee shop at the bottom. I had a delicious and decadent chocolate brownie and a coffee, while A had a big chocolate/vanilla muffin and a hot chocolate. Have I mentioned how great desserts are lately?

Not much further down the road was yet another waterfall, Skogafoss.

This one was pretty magnificent from the bottom and also had about 500 steps to get to a viewing point. We assumed that was all that was up there. Turns out there was also a pretty awesome hiking path. We walked along for about a mile before it started raining hard enough that decided it was best if we turned back.

 

Half the fun of the hike was seeing if we could get any good pictures of all the sheep we saw. The way back was incredibly rainy and wet and muddy. None of us were incredibly happy by the time we got back to the car as we were all soaking wet. We still had the drive to Vik, although by the time we got there it was still raining and none of us especially wanted to get out of the car. We did walk briefly to the black sand beaches, however.

We attempted to do a tour at the wool factory, but the "tour" was really just a store with big windows where you could look at people working. On the way back we stopped a big parking lot. There was nothing to be seen, but we were told that there was an abandoned airplane somewhere. Even though it was raining, we decided to go out and see it anyway. After a mile and a half of running (yes, we decided to run this even though it was supposed to be a short walk/hike) we started asking people who told us we were only halfway there. We were all sick and tired of being wet, so we turned around. Oh well, we got a 3 mile run in.

We didn't get back into town until almost 6:00. We made a quick stop by the mall, walked around, didn't see anything of interest. Dinner was leftover Domino's (yes, again) and beer.

Finally, later in the evening, it was actually not windy and warm enough to sit in the garden. We did laundry and got caught up on our social media.

Steps - 23.522
Miles - 3.0, plus a hike (2.0ish miles)

To be continued...